Union home minister Amit Shah on Thursday asked to create special jails in every state and union territory that meet the international standards for fugitives and also revoke their passports as soon as Interpol red notices are published against them.
The home minister also suggested creating a national database of fugitives and creating a special cell in every state and UT to deal with extradition cases.
He was addressing the opening session of a two-day conference on “extradition of fugitives: challenges and strategies”, being organised by CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), at Bharat Mandapam, where central and state agencies will discuss various aspects of tracing fugitives, issuing Interpol notices, and bringing them back to India.
HT had exclusively reported on Monday that such a conference for fugitives and extraditions is being organised.
“I have some suggestions for actionable points for this conference. There should be a special jail that meets the international standards in every state for the fugitives whose extraditions are being sought. They (fugitives) often argue (in courts of countries they are hiding) that Indian prisons do not have international standards, which I don’t agree with but we should not take chances,” said Shah.
“The passports of fugitives should be revoked as soon as Interpol red notices are issued against them,” Shah said.
Officials familiar with the process said revoking passports will make the fugitives stateless.
On the fugitives database, Shah said, “We should have a database which will have all the details about the person’s crime, his status in foreign country, his network etc, and it should be shared with all states’ police.” “The states/UTs should have a special cell also which will focus only on extradition requests”.
Besides, Shah said, we should have made use of section 355 and 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which is “trial in absentia” against the fugitives, adding that the issue of fugitives is linked to India’s national security. “Till they fear our law, we won’t succeed,” Shah said.
Speaking at the conference, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director Praveen Sood said that India’s total 388 extradition requests are pending with various countries and till date, 957 Interpol red notices have been issued against various kinds of fugitives.
Sood also said that the processing time for publishing Interpol red notices for fugitives based on India’s request has come from 14 months to just three months now due to Bharatpol.
“Due to bharatpol, the time taken in publishing Interpol red notices has reduced from 14 months to just three months now. We have only eight proposals (for Interpol notices) pending right now,” Sood said.